Nintendo Announces Bizarre New Cardboard Peripheral(s) For The Switch

Dave Thier
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Credit: Nintendo

Nintendo Labo.

Of all the things I expected Nintendo to announce today, a system of bizarre Nintendo Switch peripherals made out of cardboard was not one of them. And yet here we are, and I like where we are. Nintendo's mystery announcement today turns out to be the Nintendo "Labo," a system of DIY, foldable cardboard peripherals designed to hold the Nintendo Switch, its Joy-Cons, or both. If that's a bit difficult to understand, watch the video below:

According to the Guardian, there are 25 different variations in all: in the video, we see things like a fishing rod, a piano, a robot backpack, a remote control bug sort of thing, a toy house and more. Most are designed to take advantage of the Joy-Cons motion controls -- the backpack, for example, appears to give you the illusion of controlling a robot by effectively strapping a Joy-Con to your back. Nintendo had announced that it was aiming this product at kids, but it looks like there will be plenty of room for adults in there as well. Nintendo will be calling the cardboard creations "Toy-Cons," because of course they will. Labo comes out on April 20.

Polygon reports
that Labo will cost $69.99, though it's unclear if that will include the cost of bundled software. We don't have a huge amount of information now, but Labo looks like it's going to have little minigames attached to each cardboard accessory, and that in most cases you'll still be looking at the Switch screen. It's the sort of thing that could only really come from the Switch, with its portability and flexibility, and its the sort of thing I'm not sure I've ever quite seen in the video game space before. Moments like these remind us that Nintendo is a toymaker: it's been interested in strange plastic -- and now cardboard -- peripherals since before the Power Glove, and that shows no sign of slowing down soon. You could imagine Labo as a kind of augmented reality, albeit not the kind we're used to. Here, Nintendo uses physical objects to blur the line between game and reality to create something that looks like a toy and a video game at the same time.

Hopefully, we'll get some hands-on with this thing soon, but until now it's been one of the strangest things yet from a company never short on surprises.